Never Ending
by RedSharkBait
Summary: She just never stops...Cam and Vala snarkiness, definitely not a ship. Yet. Takes place sometime in Season 10. Edit/update/expansion: When three-fifths of SG-1 is held hostage, will the remaining two be able to get what their captors want in time?
1. Never Ending

"_Oh_ is it cold! Are you cold?" Vala shivered and wrapped her arms around her shoulders.

"Vala, for the _eight hundredth_ time, we're _all_ cold! Quit whining, you big baby." Cam snapped. It had been three hours since their captors left. Three hours of constant complaining and chattering. _Three hours_ of…Vala. _Anytime now, Carter._

"Somebody's cranky." Vala glared and stuck out her tongue.

"I wouldn't be so cranky if you just _shut your mouth_ for _one second!_ Is that so hard for you to comprehend?"

"I'm just making conversation, Cameron. You don't have to be this way."

"How are you feeling? When do you think Carter will be here? Don't you love the ceiling pattern?" Cameron said. "_That _is making conversation. Not 'I'm cold. It smells funny in here. I'm cold. This floor is hard. I'm hungry.'"

"According to you, we're all cold, so what's wrong with saying it?"

"Nothing, once. Or twice, maybe even three times. _Not _six billion."

"I thought you said it was eight hundred."

"Shut up."

"You're just miserable because I was right and you were wrong."

"What are you talking about?"

"I told you we should have gone the other way. If you hadn't…"

"Oh, come _on!_" He interrupted with a waved hand. "You really think that would have changed anything?"

"It might have."

"They were following us from the moment we arrived on the planet!"

"But the other path might have given us a better…tactical situation."

"There were fifty of them! We would have been surrounded either way."

"You don't know that."

"Yes I do!"

"How?"

"I just do!"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I think we've had this conversation before."

"We have? Oh, _right_! When I suggested we take the path that _wouldn't lead to an ambush_? You asked how I knew it was a better choice, and I said I just did, and you said…"

"Vala, shut up!"

"You shut up!"

"You started it!"

"I only said I was cold."

"Eight hundred times!"

"Well, I was cold! Every time!"

"We're all cold, so suck it up, princess!"

"Don't be such a –

"Enough!" Teal'c cut in.Vala's mouth hung open for an instant, but she clamped it shut.

"Thanks, T." Cam said.

"You were as much to blame for the argument as she was, Colonel Mitchell."

"I was not!"

"Indeed you were."

Cam glared and bit his lip to keep from saying something he'd regret. _Too late for that,_ he thought. _I hope Carter finds us soon. Otherwise I'll go crazy._ He looked at Vala, who stared back at him blankly. He felt bad for snapping, but at least now it was quiet. _At least for a while._


	2. Having Fun Yet?

Disclaimer and Stuff:

_Disclaimer and Stuff:_

_I _totally _own SG-1 and all the characters…yeah, right. I wish. They belong to Paramount, please don't sue me._

_Anywho, I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with this. Somebody specifically requested that it not be a Sam/Daniel ship, and truth be told, I'm getting kind of tired of those two…_

_So please don't worry about the plot device I'm using (you'll know it when you read it), it won't go that way, I promise. Maybe._

"Are you done here?" the last part of the question trailed off as Daniel came around the corner and noticed the wires, crystals, and a host of other things strewn on the floor around a very tired looking Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter.

"Done? No…" She looked up at him with a bemused expression. "I really haven't got started, why? Are you done translating that wall already?"

"Hmm. Well, the thing is, for something to be translated, it has to be translatable, which usually means it has to be _words_. Or letters, hieroglyphics, pictograms…"

"And the wall?" Carter raised her eyebrows quizzically.

"Is none of those things." He crouched and sat down beside her. "It's…meaningless."

"Are you sure?"

"Yep." He cut her off before she could ask the question he knew was coming. "It's not a code, either."

"But you said you recognized it from the village."

"Oh, it uses similar markings, but it's not actually writing."

"Oh. Well, that kind of…um…"

"Sucks? Yep."

She smiled consolingly. "I'm sorry…" her voice trailed off, and then she got a mischievious look in her eye. "…_dear_." She finished.

He groaned and looked away from her. "You're enjoying this far too much, aren't you?"

"What, being married to you?"

"Ugh. Yes, that."

"Don't you love me anymore?" He couldn't help but laugh. She was looking at him with a pout and puppy dog eyes that could make a _Goa'uld_ melt. Or the Orici herself.

"Not…not that way." He whispered so as to avoid being overheard. The natives of Karenos were rather good at sneaking up behind you.

"I'm just kidding, Daniel." Her face returned to its normal state, a fact Daniel very much appreciated. "Does this really bother you?"

"No, it's…okay. Don't want to cause a stir with the natives, I understand that. I agree with it." The Karenosians, it turned out, thought it was immoral for a man and woman to travel together unless they were married. Or brother and sister, but it was decided that Sam and Daniel didn't look enough alike for the natives to buy it, and that playing husband and wife would be easier.

"Then what's the matter? Is it me?" She asked as she replaced a crystal in the very complicated device before her. It made an angry buzzing/squealing noise and she pulled it out quickly.

"Well, it's not you, or, um…I'm just not really, I don't know…I don't love you that way."

"I know. I…I'm not…in love with you, or anything. I just think it's…fun."

"Fun? It's like…marrying my sister."

"You think of me as a sister?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do."

"That's nice. Time to check in with Cam, I guess." She sat up and picked up her radio.

"Carter to Mitchell, do you copy?" There was no response. She tried it again. "Carter to Mitchell. Cam?"

She looked at Daniel concernedly. "Try yours."

"Jackson to Mitchell. Are you there?"

A voice answered, but it wasn't Mitchell's. The voice was deep and sinister, with a gravelly character.

"Colonel Mitchell is not available. If you want to see him and the others alive, you will bring us the artifact."

_End Note: Oooh…a cliffhanger. Sort of. If this were an episode, I can just see Sam and Daniel's theatrical eyebrow raisings as the camera fades to black and says "to be continued". (That sentence makes no sense, someone should have got a beta reader.) Oh well, hope you enjoyed it. Please review, tell me what you think of Sam and Daniel being forced to feign marriage. Oh, yeah. Cam and Vala too…think of the possibilities for snappy one liners. I can't wait! Thanks for reading,_

_RedSharkBait. _


	3. A Request And A Discovery

_Alright, I know it's been such a long time since I updated that you've all probably forgotten about the beginning to my little story. But I hope you enjoy this anyways._

"Ow!" Cam yelped when a sudden sharp pain in his shoulder jerked him awake. "What the…oh." He started to rebuke Vala, but stopped when he saw the three Jaffa standing just inside the door to his cell.

"You will come with us." It wasn't a request.

"Why me?" Cam retorted.

"You are the leader." The tallest of the Jaffa, standing in between the other two, said.

"How do you know?"

"Stand up!" The Jaffa ordered.

"Fine."

"You expect me to think that _she_ is the leader of SG-1? Or that the _shol'va_ is?"

Teal'c glared from where he stood as Mitchell hopped to his feet.

"No, I guess not." Cam said simply. He left with the Jaffa, one of whom glared back at Teal'c, hatred and disdain clear on his face. Teal'c stared straight on through the Jaffa whom he recognized from fighting another Goa'uld while still in the service of Apophis. Vala stared slack-jawed at Cameron as he gave his teammates one backwards glance before being led out of sight.

******

Sam's jaw dropped open as she heard the demand from someone whose voice she didn't recognize. "What artifact?" She asked through the radio.

"The artifact left here by one of the Ancients, I believe you know him as Merlin."

Sam looked at Daniel, who raised his eyebrows and shook his head. "We don't know what you're talking about." He said.

"You _will_ find it."

"Find what?" Daniel snapped.

"It is a weapon, known in your mythology as the sword of Excalibur. It is located somewhere on Karenos."

"Where?"

"Find it or they shall die."

"Who are you?" Sam asked. No response came from the radio.

"_Excalibur?_" Daniel asked incredulously. "Why would Merlin leave a _sword_ on Karenos?"

"Daniel? Are you sure the wall…"

"Yeah. I'll go try again – get that thing fixed, maybe it's somehow connected." He was already on his feet, running out the door and towards the other side of the village. Recently, some Karenosian children had stumbled across a very old room inside the village library, and one of the walls was decorated in what seemed to be a script of some kind. So far, he could decipher nothing. He arrived quickly at the library and alerted Sam.

"Alright. I'm still trying to fix the ancient device."

"Right…any idea what it is yet?"

"Some kind of...transmitter, or relay station. I think it's designed to broadcast a signal to another device somewhere on the planet."

"On the planet? Close by?"

"I don't know, Daniel. I'll tell you when I have something."

"Of course. Jackson out." He walked up to the wall and pored over the indecipherable designs again and again, finding nothing that could possibly be a set of instructions, a map, or anything that could possibly lead to "Excalibur." On the verge of giving up and radioing Carter to tell her he needed to look somewhere else, he leaned dejectedly against the wall and closed his eyes. He opened them again as he reached for his radio. Just as his hand closed around it, he noticed a strange chime to his right. He looked towards the source and noticed what he had dismissed as a decorative knob on the wall beside the markings light up with a strange green light. Still leaning against the wall, he heard a similar chime to his right. Daniel turned to look just as the wall seemed to wink out of existence and he stumbled forward. He barely caught himself from falling on his face, and found himself in a square room with no discernible entrance or exit. Designs similar to the ones on the wall he'd just fallen through adorned the walls, only these walls seemed more metallic than the other, which was made of a claylike material. They also had a slight greenish hue. _Okay, an Ancient definitely built this.._

"Uh…Sam? Did you do something?" He asked with his radio.

"Well…I don't know. The device has started transmitting…something, but it's not using full power and it seems like it's meant to…"

"Sam, I just fell through the wall." Daniel interrupted.

"What?"

"The wall. I fell through it. The strange knob…things beside the designs made a sound and lit up, and then it was like the wall wasn't there anymore."

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. I'm not sure I can get out…" he tested that theory by trying to walk into the wall. He stepped through with no difficulty at all. "No, I can get out." He stepped back in. "I'm in a tiny room with designs all over the walls. They might even be the same as the ones on the outside wall."

"Uhh…can you translate _them_?"

"I don't know. I'll get back to you."

"I'll keep trying with the device."  
"Good work so far, Sam. Any word from our mysterious hostage-taker?"

"Not at all."

"I see. Jackson out." It was only then that Daniel noticed the light. There was no light source to illuminate the room, but it was just light enough to read in. The walls themselves seemed to be nearly imperceptibly glowing. _Definitely Ancient._

A quick but thorough examination of all four walls revealed something interesting. Three of the walls – the one he fell through, the opposite wall and the one to his right were all exactly the same. The remaining wall was subtly but clearly different. Still, it was not writing. Daniel looked at the ceiling. There were no markings on it. But the floor was a different story – at least it seemed to be, under who-knew-how-many hundreds or thousands of years of dust.

Daniel knelt in the center of the square floor and began to scrape away the dirt. The light dust was caught up in the air and swirled into his eyes and mouth. He coughed and kept moving it, revealing a diamond shape inset into the otherwise plain floor. A thin line ran out from each corner and, probably, extended all the way to every wall. Daniel pressed gently on the diamond, and it gave slightly. He pushed harder, and it slid down a few inches. He pressed as hard as he could, and it gave a little more before clicking into place. It would go no further, and yet...nothing had happened.

"Hmm." Daniel looked around, looked at the walls again. He stood up and ran his hands along the walls, looking for something else to push inward. His search was unsuccessful. He stopped and looked thoughtfully at what was now a six-inch-deep diamond shaped hole in the floor. _I can't call Sam again yet, it's too soon._ He thought somewhat dejectedly.

After several long moments of staring at the hole, the archaeologist decided to try again. He stepped forward and reached a foot out to push harder on the diamond. Just as his foot touched the bottom of the hole, a strange, loud hum erupted from all around him, vaguely reminiscent of the sound a Stargate made when someone first began dialing. Then the surface of the diamond began to glow brightly, and light "flowed" for lack of a better term through the lines stretching out from the four corners of the diamond toward the walls. When the light reached the walls, they too started glowing more brightly and a beam of energy seemed to flicker up the three identical walls, while the unique wall remained unchanged. Daniel followed with his eyes as the strange glow continued on to the ceiling, where it met in the center. Now a wide beam of light shot out from the ceiling onto the unique wall and the design shifted. Now what was clearly writing seemed to leap out of the far wall. Just as the miraculous spectacle ended, Daniel's radio crackled and he heard Carter's excited voice.

"Daniel! The device is operating at full power!"

"Way to go, Sam! I think you'll want to see this."

"On my way, Carter out."

_What do you think? Wondering which Goa'uld the Jaffa Teal'c recognized served/serves? Wanna know what in the name of Sokar Excalibur is? Don't go away, we'll be back after these messages. (Remember when Saturday Morning Cartoons would always say that before commercial breaks? Good old days, those were.) Er…I mean, SG-1 will be back after RedSharkBait has another good idea and his adoring fans read and review. Go on, you know you wanna!_

_-RedSharkBait_


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